Global surveillance of influenza viruses in animals needs to be intensified to “rapidly detect any changes to the virus that could pose a greater threat to humans”, World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyessus told a media briefing on Wednesday.
More needs to be done to ensure migrant communities are a key focus of receiving vital routine vaccinations to ensure health equity. That is according to Dr. Sally Hargreaves from St George's, University of London, whose research is published as part of the new migrant health Series in The Lancet Regional Health—Europe and is speaking at a World Health Assembly side event at The Geneva Health Forum.
Extreme weather events have hit parts of Africa relentlessly in the last three years, with tropical storms, floods and drought causing crises of hunger and displacement. They leave another deadly threat behind them: some of the continent's worst outbreaks of cholera.
In southern and East Africa, more than 6,000 people have died and nearly 350,000 cases have been reported since a series of cholera outbreaks began in late 2021.....
All have experienced floods or drought—in some cases, both—and health authorities, scientists and aid agencies say the unprecedented surge of the water-borne bacterial infection in Africa is the newest example of how extreme weather is playing a role in driving disease outbreaks.
US health authorities warned Thursday that a deadlier version of mpox (formerly monkeypox) spreading in the Democratic Republic of the Congo could soon cross international borders, urging those at risk to get vaccinated.
